{"id":660557,"date":"2026-06-27T05:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T05:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660557\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T05:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T05:03:10","slug":"man-jailed-for-assault-on-police-officers-and-customer-at-manchester-airport-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/660557\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed for assault on police officers and customer at Manchester airport | Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a member of the public at a Starbucks in Manchester<\/a> airport.<\/p>\n

Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was convicted<\/a> of common assault and two counts of actual bodily harm, after a four-week trial at Liverpool crown court last year.<\/p>\n

Mobile phone footage of the brawl, which took place in July 2024, was shared widely on social media following the incident. It showed a young Asian man kicked in the face on the floor by a male police officer, who then appeared to stamp towards his head.<\/p>\n

Days later, a CCTV clip, leaked to the media, showed an altercation beforehand with three police officers, who sustained injuries including concussion, a broken nose and bruising and swelling.<\/p>\n

Footage played to the jury showed Amaaz head-butting a member of the public, and throwing 10 punches, two elbow strikes and one kick at the responding police officers, who included PC Lydia Ward and PC Ellie Cook.<\/p>\n

He and his fellow defendant, his brother, Muhammad Amaad, 26, from Rochdale, had claimed they acted in lawful self-defence, or defence of each other, against the male police officer, PC Zachary Marsden.<\/p>\n

Two juries could not make a decision on the charges relating to PC Marsden, and the Crown Prosecution Service last month said it would not seek a third trial<\/a> against the brothers.<\/p>\n

In her victim impact statement, Ward said Amaaz had \u201cknocked me to the ground with one punch, with so much force you broke my nose\u201d, describing what he did as \u201ccowardly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat angers me is that afterwards, when only part of the footage was out in the public, you played the victim,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When she and her colleague were attacked, Ward said, \u201cwe were totally blindsided, and I felt like it came from nowhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never in a million years thought you would have attacked me the way you did,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m still so confused about it all. It replays in my mind constantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told the court she had given birth last year, and said that in \u201cmuch of my maternity leave, I have had the worry of having to go back to court hanging over me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been unable to enjoy the experience as I should have,\u201d she added. \u201cI\u2019ll never get this time back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook said she was left \u201ctraumatised\u201d by the attack, during which she was \u201cterrified\u201d and suffered \u201cexcruciating\u201d pain. Amaaz\u2019s punches, she said, had \u201csuch power behind them that I thought I was being attacked by three to four people\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said she had \u201cwoke[n] up that morning happy\u201d, as she \u201chad recently started a new role at the airport as a firearms officer, and I was loving it\u201d. In a statement read to the court, she said she had taken the job as a stepping stone to a role in the Metropolitan police as a close protection officer.<\/p>\n

When she woke up that day, she said, \u201cI never could have imagined what was about to happen to me\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you will ever begin to understand what you have done to me, or my family,\u201d she added. \u201cI used to be happy. I used to be driven. I used to be focused. I am now broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook said she had been left feeling \u201cso angry and frustrated with what happened\u201d, adding: \u201cIt hurts and upsets me that you chose to spin the narrative the way you did.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her statement, she said \u201ceveryone was talking about it, and I couldn\u2019t escape,\u201d and she had to move out of \u201ca home where I felt safe and secure\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cook said she had been signed off work last year with duty-related trauma. \u201cIt pains me to say this, but because of what you have done to me, I have decided to give up being a firearms officer,\u201d she said. \u201cThis means my dream of becoming a close protection officer is on hold, and I may have to come to terms with the fact that it may not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being convicted of assaulting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-660557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}